501st: An Imperial Commando Novel

by Karen Traviss

  Darman felt his scalp prickle with an awful fear. He heard the word Zey and didn’t care who was alive, or what Uthan was doing, because his brain stalled at the word Jedi.

  Jedi. Jedi at Kyrimorut. No. No, no, no.

  “This is a joke, right?” Darman said. Jedi, living under the same roof as my kid? “Tell me it’s a joke.”

  Fi seemed to realize he’d said too much. “No, Dar, it’s true. But it’s okay. Kal’buir’s keeping an eye on everything. It’s all going to be all right.”

  Darman couldn’t concentrate on the conversation. All he could think was that Kyrimorut was full of Jedi, and it was the place where Kad was supposed to be safe from them. He could feel his pulse hammering in his throat. How could Skirata let them in? What was he thinking?

  “Dar? Dar, are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” he said, numb and shocked. He wanted to tell them to get Jusik, but he couldn’t stand to sit here a moment longer, helpless and scared, a galaxy away from his son. “I’ve got to go. Tell Jusik to keep Kad safe. Make him swear it. Tell him that if the Jedi take my boy, I’ll come after him. Tell him.”

  “Dar, it’s okay, it’s not like that—”

  “Tell him.”

  “Dar?”

  “I’ll call back later.”

  He shut the comm channel without waiting for a reply, and sat shaking, hands braced on his knees.

  Jedi, in his haven, with his son. Jedi. He wasn’t going to take that. He had to calm down, think things over, and come up with a new plan.

  There was no point fighting the war against Force-users at Melusar’s side if the Jedi Order had a foothold in his own home.

  Kyrimorut, Mandalore

  “Is he responding, Ord’ika?” Skirata asked. “Is that thing working?”

  Ny thought Ordo was starting to look ragged from lack of sleep, but his patience with his father never failed. He handed over the comlink.

  “It’s working,” he said. “I’ve just raised Niner. Dar’s taken it badly. Kal’buir, there was never going to be a good way to tell him about the Jedi. Don’t blame Fi.”

  “I’m not blaming Fi. I’m blaming me.”

  Skirata paced around the karyai, one hand in his pocket, the other to his mouth, head down and staring at the floor. Ny had never seen Skirata wilt under pressure. The more problems he had, the stronger he seemed. She wondered how he’d cope when things finally settled down and everyone lived a routine life here. He was going to miss his wars.

  But that’s never going to happen. Is it? It’s always going to be this way.

  “Ny, you don’t have to stay up,” he said. “Get some rest. It’s nearly two in the morning.”

  “I can’t sleep now. How do you think I feel? I was supposed to bring Dar home.”

  “I should have told him. Again. I never leveled with him about Etain being pregnant with Kad. I let him hold that kid without telling him he was the father. I can’t keep doing that to him, or he’s never going to trust me to tell him so much as the time of day.”

  “The Jedi weren’t a secret,” Ordo said wearily. “We just never got the chance to mention them. It’s not like we chat to Dar and Niner all day. Look how long it took us to establish comm contact with them. And it’s still risky.”

  Ny could hear the faint burble of hushed conversations elsewhere in the house. Besany wandered into the room, bathrobe pulled tight around her. Even in a scruffy robe, hair uncombed, and no makeup, she looked effortlessly glamorous.

  “Is this a making lots of caf kind of crisis, or worse?” she asked.

  Ordo moved up to make room for her on the padded bench. “Dar’s gone off in a huff. He found out the Jedi were here.”

  “That’s no surprise. He’s hunting them while they’re here watching his son grow up. That has to hurt, especially with Etain gone.”

  It was brutal and true. Besany was a clearheaded woman who got to the point. But even in this outspoken, unapologetic society, nobody had ever said the obvious. Nobody had railed at Ny for wanting to bring two Jedi here. And nobody had criticized Skirata for agreeing to it. Ny felt this was one more problem she’d landed them with.

  I’ve put them all in danger. Even if Kina Ha is the key to solving the aging problem, is it worth this?

  Skirata stopped dead and straightened up. He had that rabid look in his eyes that said he had a plan. “Okay, ideas. We can’t go on collecting trouble.”

  “The immediate problem is reassuring Dar,” Ordo said. “Niner seems okay about it. Shocked, maybe, but not like Dar—but then he’s not got a half-Jedi child to worry about. The bigger problem isn’t going to go away as easily.”

  “You think reassuring Dar is easy?”

  “Anything that keeps Kad away from Jedi or any other Force-user will placate him.”

  “If he’d got his shebs back here like he was told to, he wouldn’t need to be worrying now.” Skirata shook his head, eyes screwed up in self-disgust for a second. “Okay, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

  Ordo gave Ny his back-me-up look and steered the conversation back again. “The Jedi are a time bomb. You know it.”

  “I should have quit when I was ahead with Uthan, and not got greedy for Kina Ha, too.” Skirata put his hand on Ny’s shoulder. It felt comradely rather than romantic. A’den’s matchmaking efforts might have been corralling both of them into something that wasn’t meant to be. “So I get my just desserts for taking advantage of your good nature, freight-jockey.”

  Ny tried to be objective. If these had been her sons, would she have done anything different? “I can’t claim you weren’t honest about it. Can I?”

  “Well, it’s bitten me in the shebs. It’s going to cause strife in this clan, and it’s my job to resolve it. The fact that I’m standing here debating about it instead of doing the obvious tells me that Vau’s right. I don’t have the gett’se to stick to a hard line on Jedi. It was all talk. When it comes down to it, I’m too much of a moral coward to shoot them.”

  “Actually,” Ny said, “I think that’s moral courage.”

  Skirata just looked at her as if she’d made a terrible gaffe that everyone else could see and she couldn’t. He shook his head.

  “You don’t get it,” he said.

  Ordo cut off any explanation. “Once Uthan has whatever she needs from Kina Ha, then the choices are to find somewhere to off-load the Jedi, or to terminate them.” He used the same word the Kaminoans had used for exterminating him and his brothers. Normally, he spoke like the soldier he was and said neutralized or slotted. Ny wondered if he was consciously treating Kaminoans as they’d treated him, or if he’d been so inured to the lives being snuffed out for being inconvenient or falling short of imagined standards that he used it as casually as his creators. “And if they remain alive, we need to be sure that they won’t lead the Empire to us—willingly or otherwise.”

  Skirata ran his hand down his face, clearly struggling with his options. Ny suspected he wouldn’t have been so torn if she hadn’t been around. He’d have been hearing the same message from everyone. Just get rid of them. You don’t owe them a thing. They’ll be our downfall. Instead, he looked into her eyes and saw the dread, that she’d hate him for taking the brutal but certain option.

  She wasn’t even sure she’d hate him, though, and that scared her.

  “Just asking them to keep their traps shut isn’t enough,” he said. “And you can’t make folks forget things to order.”

  “Yes, you can,” Besany said. “Jusik can.”

  “What, that mind-rub thing?”

  “He told me how he wiped some Twi’lek’s memory of being questioned by him and Scorch, when you were trying to grab Ko Sai before Delta got to her.”

  Skirata snorted, amused. “So he did. And that one sordid episode sums me up. I even deceived Vau’s boys—all in a noble cause, of course. Just like Jedi. Ends justify means.”

  Ordo’s jaw clenched. “Drop the guilt now and concentrate on solutions, Buir.
We were all willing participants in that mission. We’re not kids. We make decisions for ourselves.”

  He might have been trying to snap his father out of wallowing in guilt, or he might have meant it. Ny could only see complete devotion in Ordo when it came to Skirata. But he could be pretty cutting when he put his mind to it.

  “Sorry, son.”

  “Let’s ask Jusik whether he can erase memories in other Jedi. And how.”

  Besany nodded and put her arm through Ordo’s. “I’m up for that. If I have a vote.”

  “Your life’s on the line with ours, Bes’ika. Vote away.”

  “I say we aim to help our Jedi guests to forget Kyrimorut, and then get Altis to take them,” Ordo said. “Because if we can’t, I’m going to take the decision out of your hands and do it myself. I love you, Buir, and I’d willingly give my life for you, but I won’t risk it for a Jedi. Not even a kind one. It makes a mockery of everything we’ve been through.” Ordo stood up to leave. “Now Bes’ika and I are going to get some sleep, and in the morning you’ll talk to Dar and Niner and smooth them over. Okay? You’re their father. They’ll listen to you.”

  Skirata stood staring at the floor for a while after Ordo had gone, lost in thought. Ny didn’t want to leave him to stew alone.

  “He’s doing it to spare me getting my hands dirty,” he said at last.

  “I think he’s doing it because he really wants the Jedi out of his life, Kal.”

  “Am I being a bigot? About Jedi, I mean.”

  “Well, you are a bigot, but you gave Jusik a chance. And you haven’t shot Kina Ha or Scout yet.”

  “You left out Zey.”

  “And Zey. You feel sorry for him.”

  Skirata didn’t take the bait. He put his boots up on a chair and shut his eyes. “Maybe.”

  Ny boiled a pot of water and started making caf. Skirata played the knife-wielding thug to perfection, and it wasn’t an act. His job was to kill people for payment. But there was still that intelligent, compassionate core that drew her to him. He was an extreme man living in an extreme world. She wasn’t sure he’d had a chance to ever be anything else.

  He saves lives. He also takes them without a second thought. I have to live with that.

  “Do you seriously think that the garrison isn’t going to hear about you anyway, Shortie?” she asked. “You went into the cantina. They had our images on the wall—on the bounty hunters’ job sheet.”

  Skirata opened his eyes and reached for a cup of caf. “There’s hearing, and then there’s finding.”

  Ny watched him for a while, wondering how a little boy from a regular working-class Kuati family grew up into a gangster. He didn’t seem to mind being watched. She found they could sit together in silence and not feel uneasy about it.

  A few pots of silent coffee later, Jusik wandered into the kitchen, followed by a worried-looking Zey. Skirata gave them both an appraising stare. Ny didn’t pick up any signs of animosity. If anything, he seemed baffled by the Jedi.

  “I heard about Dar,” Jusik said. “Fi’s mortified.”

  “It’s not Fi’s fault.” Skirata gestured to the caf pot. “But we’ve got to clear this up.” He raised his eyebrows at Zey. “You heard, too, I take it.”

  “Kal, I wish I knew why Darman thinks I’m a danger to his child.”

  “Well, apart from being on the Empire’s most wanted list—not that we aren’t all on it—he thinks you’ll take Kad and turn him into a saber-jockey, and Etain didn’t want that. And neither does Dar.”

  Zey looked at Jusik in a where-did-I-go-wrong way. Ny wondered how he coped with seeing his former underling go native without so much as a backward glance at his Jedi days.

  “You really see us as baby-stealers?” Zey asked.

  “You wouldn’t like the answer,” Skirata said.

  “How about you and your clone sons? Didn’t you take them before they were old enough to vote on it?”

  “That’s different. I did what was best for those lads when everyone else treated them as disposable.”

  Ny winced. Skirata had spectacular double-standards, and the extraordinary thing was that they convinced her. But when she stood back, all she could see was how many qualities—and terrible flaws—Mandalorians had in common with Jedi. One day, she’d have a sensible conversation with him about it. Now wasn’t the best time. Even Zey, who didn’t strike her as the retiring type, didn’t pursue the case.

  “I’m going to find you, Kina Ha, and Scout a safe haven,” Skirata said. “It’s a long way from here, and you’re going to have to forget you ever saw this place.”

  Poor Zey. Here he was, a man who’d held serious power and responsibility, reduced to a refugee and being bounced around like an unwanted stray.

  “You know I’d never do anything to compromise your family’s safety, Kal,” he said. “I know what I have to atone for, both as a Jedi and a man. And I’d never seek to recruit Kad. I swear it.”

  Skirata gave him a five-second stare, the sort that usually shook anyone down. “I believe you,” he said. “But could you still keep your mouth shut after Palpatine’s thugs had been working on you for a week or two?”

  Zey didn’t answer.

  “Very few could,” Skirata said. “And I can’t bet the safety of this place on the chance that you’re the exception. If Bard’ika can erase your memories of being here, I’m going to ask a Jedi sect to take you in. Altis.”

  Ny watched Zey’s shoulders stiffen. “Altis?”

  “Don’t go all doctrinal on me, Zey,” Skirata said. “You Jedi Order guys are all but extinct, so this isn’t the time to tell me you wouldn’t be seen dead in his temple.”

  “I wasn’t. I just had no idea he’d survived, let alone that you knew him.”

  “I don’t. But I will.” Skirata turned to Jusik. “You know how to find him, Bard’ika. And you, Zey—all I’m asking is that you saber-jockeys learn, and stay out of politics. Because if you don’t, and I’m still alive to hold a knife, I’ll personally find you and cut your throat.”

  Skirata got up with slow care, wincing at stiff joints, and went outside. Ny heard the ’fresher doors close. Zey turned to her as if she was the umpire and he wanted her to tell him how the game was going.

  “And he’d let us go, for all that?” Zey said. “He knows where Altis is, and he hasn’t turned him in?”

  Ny could only shrug. “And would that save us?”

  There were no deals to strike with this Empire.

  She was fiercely proud of Skirata at that moment. It wasn’t about being kind to Jedi who’d almost become friends. She liked to think Skirata was ignoring his instincts and trying to do things differently, to break the cycle of revenge, even though history told him he was a fool to try.

  He probably knew that. And Ny realized that nothing would change, and that if she lived long enough, she’d see the same old wheel turn. But Skirata was the first to put the blaster aside. It didn’t matter if he failed. He’d done it.

  You’re a good man, Shortie. I wasn’t wrong about you.

  Jango Fett wouldn’t have agreed, but he was dead, and Skirata had a duty to the living.

  Meserian, Outer Rim

  Jusik didn’t need to check any hard data when he landed the Aggressor starfighter. He was definitely in the right place. He didn’t even have to concentrate or check his instruments.

  The place hummed with the Force presence of a lot of Jedi.

  It’s like walking into the Temple again.

  He’d forgotten that feeling. Being away from the company of Jedi for so long, the sensation hit his senses afresh, and he was briefly disorientated by the sheer wealth of information in it. He shut his eyes and let it wash over him. If the feel of the Temple had been serene, restrained, a plain gray kind of sensation, then this gathering felt like … a patchwork, a vivid quilt, no two parts of it matching but somehow harmonious.

  Djinn Altis’s community—or a large proportion of them—was very close. The sensation
was oddly comforting.

  Does this speak to me? Do I miss what I used to be?

  Jusik was constantly alert now for signs of backsliding. It worried him. Despite the fear any Jedi must have felt at that moment, the Altis sect seemed happy. Not serene, not purged of passions; happy, actively happy, in the way of people with fully lived and sometimes turbulent lives.

  “Bard’ika, have you nodded off?” Fi demanded.

  Jusik opened his eyes. “Just feeling the Force. Who’s who, where’s where.”

  “And?”

  “They’re here.”

  “Well, you did comm them first.”

  “That poor woman. ‘Look, lady, no comm number stays secret from me forever … ’ I hate myself for enjoying this sort of thing.”

  “You going to tell them their information was compromised?”

  “I ought to, but I won’t. Kal’buir can put the frighteners on them. He’s good at that.”

  Fi put his helmet on, the red and gray one that had once belonged to Ghez Hokan. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  “Fi, do you think this is a good idea?”

  “Well, I like it better than killing old ladies. Even aiwha-bait old ladies. And little girls. Killing kids is plain wrong, even if she is older than me. Oh, unless they open fire on me first. Then they’re fair game.”

  Jusik counted on his fingers. Yes, Scout had probably been born a year or two before Fi was hatched. He needed to remember that. It kept him focused on what Kyrimorut was all about. This off-loading of Jedi, this ducking and diving—that was a diversion, a sideshow. The main agenda was to give his brothers back their rightful time. He would grow old with them, not watch them fade fast and far too young.

  He secured the Aggressor and stood surveying the area. It looked as rough as a bantha’s backside. The low-rise buildings were huddled together like conspirators, stucco walls peeling, and wherever there was a wall or a gulley it was full of windblown garbage. He could smell raw sewage. Some of the walls had blaster damage, their skim coat of garishly painted plaster gouged out in places to reveal the ferrocrete blocks beneath. Most of the stores seemed to be cantinas. Speeders in various stages of decay or dismantlement dotted the streets.